


good chemistry

by Anonymous



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Carolina Hurricanes, Chemistry, M/M, Some Plot, but not a whole lot tbh!, only a little bit of marty sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:08:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25908622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: It isn’t till they’re settled on the bus, side-by-side, that Andrei leans in, his lips brushing Dougie’s ear, and says, “That was a pretty good goal.”Dougie can’t help but snort. “Oh?” he says, turning his head a little in the dimness. “You think so?”Andrei’s grinning, dark-eyed and mischievous. “Yeah.”
Relationships: Dougie Hamilton/Andrei Svechnikov
Comments: 2
Kudos: 72
Collections: Anonymous





	good chemistry

**Author's Note:**

> 8/16/2020: I wrote this, obviously, before the events of game 3. I'm leaving it up because I don't believe in taking things down once I've written them, but rereading it now that Svech is hurt, and badly, makes me sick to my stomach. 
> 
> I hope he gets better soon.

The locker room is riding high on the buzz of the game 2 win, relief and satisfaction written all over twenty sweaty and smiling faces. Dougie tunes out the background conversations and just coasts on the feeling for a minute, leaning back against the wall and letting his eyes slip closed. It’s been a long time since anything was as cathartic as his goal tonight. He intends to savor it before he has to move on.

Eventually his sweat starts to cool under his gear and the noise diminishes as the room begins to clear out, and that’s probably his cue to go ahead and shower and get out of here as soon as he can escape the inevitable media huddle. He’s pulling his clammy Under Armour over his head and idly thinking about ordering takeout back at the hotel, and then he meets Andrei’s eyes across the room and forgets how to think at all.

Andrei’s face is flushed patchy under his scraggly playoff mustache and his hair is sticking up in ten different places and none of it matters because the look he’s leveling Dougie with right now, eyes dark and intent, suggests that it would be in Dougie’s best interests to make his shower a thorough one. Right on cue, as if he needed any further confirmation, he feels the familiar tingling warmth edge its way down his spine. Fuck, but he’s spent seven months missing this.

The Canes, he’d come to realize last season, were unorthodox in more ways than one. With the Bruins and the Flames he remembers chemistry being something cultivated only with linemates or d-partners, maybe occasionally among goalies, and implicitly discouraged anywhere else. He’d thought that was how it was everywhere, and then he’d come to Carolina, where bonds were woven through the whole team like a net. Sure, there were conventional pairings; Aho and Turbo were practically joined at the hip, but then he saw the unmistakeable traces of it between forwards and d, hell, between d and _goalies_ , and it had turned his entire understanding of the world on its head. And there had been Andrei, a rookie at eighteen years old, bright-eyed and broad-shouldered and a prodigy for all that he was still learning. Eighteen years old, and when he had first met Dougie and shaken his hand and told him it was nice to meet him in heavily-accented English Dougie had felt his spine light up — _so soon?_ — and had taken a reflexive step back, breaking out in an instant, cold terror-sweat. It wasn’t allowed. Obviously it wasn’t allowed; how could he have been so reckless, so careless, fucked everything all to hell before he’d even gotten going? And yet — Marty had walked by and taken in the scene and beamed, clapping them both on the shoulder. “We got a live one, eh boys?” he had hooted, and Andrei had grinned at him, bewildered and tentative and hopeful all at once, and Dougie had begun to understand that here in Raleigh things were different. Even so, he hadn’t been able to entirely shake the old traditions; teammates came and went, lines were shuffled, chemistry ebbed and flowed like the tide, but for Dougie there was only Andrei, who held him — holds him — in orbit like he’s his own personal sun.

He makes himself break eye contact and fights his way out of the rest of his gear before showering as fast as he dares. Of course he has to sit through media availability, and he’s game for their questions, but he spends the whole time trying not to let his distraction show on his face. He can feel Andrei somewhere in the vicinity, just out of sight but unmistakably present, setting his nerve endings smoldering. 

It ends, finally, blessedly, and he grabs his bag and escapes down the hallway towards the team bus. Andrei, freshly-showered hair sticking to his neck, is waiting for him at the door, and they fall into step as they wordlessly walk out into the night. It isn’t till they’re settled on the bus, side-by-side, that Andrei leans in, his lips brushing Dougie’s ear, and says, “That was a pretty good goal.”

Dougie can’t help but snort. “Oh?” he says, turning his head a little in the dimness. “You think so?”

Andrei’s grinning, dark-eyed and mischievous. “Yeah.” 

Dougie fights the resultant shiver, the accompanying urge to pin Andrei against the bus window. The hotel is two blocks away.

They ride the elevator in silence, and when Dougie turns down the hallway towards his room Andrei follows, footfalls nearly inaudible against the plush hotel carpet. He sticks his key card in the door, flicks on the light. Drops his bag from nerveless fingers when Andrei trails a hand up his spine.

“Ah — dirty pool,” Dougie manages, half-turning, “I’m barely in the room yet,” and Andrei crowds close and murmurs, “You are now,” and shoulders the door shut behind him, and leaning down to kiss him is as easy as breathing.

From the beginning they’ve understood each other better here than anywhere else, in the give-and-take between hands and mouths and bodies, and it doesn’t take long before Dougie is pushing Andrei’s unbuttoned shirt down his shoulders and laying kisses along his collarbone with Andrei’s fingers tangled in his hair, pausing to set his teeth along the ridge of his neck and listen to his breath stutter. And maybe normally he’d linger here, spending minutes or hours remapping Andrei’s body and all the sounds he can draw out of him, but this is Dougie’s second night back in seven months and he’s impatient.

“How do you want it?” he asks, pulling away just enough to meet Andrei’s eyes.

It takes a moment for Andrei to refocus, but when he does his grin is smirking and self-satisfied.“You scored the big goal,” he says, eyes dancing. “Up to you.”

“You scored a goal too,” says Dougie, halfheartedly, knowing he’s not going to win. Andrei is cutting him off before he even finishes the sentence.

“Not the game-winner,” he counters, and when Dougie sighs and lets his shoulders slump in mock-defeat Andrei beams in triumph. “Now choose.”

Andrei’s put on muscle over the summer, broad shoulders filling out broader, growing into himself. He’s going to be spectacular for years and years, the terror of the league. Dougie gets a little dizzy thinking about it, sometimes. He skims his hands along the tops of those broad shoulders, where he knows Andrei feels their chemistry, and watches him shiver.

“You wanna fuck me?” he asks, bold. Andrei sucks in a breath and his gaze darkens. 

“Jesus, Dougie,” he says, low and reverent, and then his brow furrows, head tilting slightly. “Our next game is noon on Saturday.”

It’s a question as much as it is a statement of fact: are you sure? “Yeah,” Dougie replies, answer and confirmation in one, already in the middle of pulling his own shirt off over his head, and when he moves to stretch out on his back on the bed Andrei follows him down.

Seven months is a long time, and Dougie has half a mind to warn Andrei to take it slow, but he should have known better: Andrei knows, and he’s careful when he opens Dougie up, big fingers slick and sure. He takes his time until Dougie’s more than ready, writhing and panting and desperate for it, one hand twisted in the sheets and the other in Andrei’s hair urging him upward. “C’mon,” he pleads, and Andrei’s cheeks are dusted pink and there are tooth marks in his bottom lip when he finally draws back to roll a condom on before pressing in.

They find their way to a deliberate, devastating rhythm that has Dougie’s toes curling and Andrei breathing hard and open-mouthed into the crook of his neck. It’s like he’s being lit up from the inside every time Andrei hitches his hips just so, and when Andrei shifts his weight and hooks his elbow under one of Dougie’s knees it does something impossible to the angle and the hazy glow of sensation becomes a fire under his skin. He can _feel_ Andrei, not just above him and inside him but in his mind, their shared pleasure redoubling as it echoes between them, lighting up his brain. God, but it’s been too long and it’s too much; he’s not going to last. “Andrei,” he gasps, “I’m,” and he can’t even finish the sentence. 

Andrei pulls back just enough to press their foreheads together, just enough for them to breathe each other’s air. “Yeah,” he manages, sounding absolutely wrecked, “come on, do it,” and Dougie barely gets a hand around himself before he’s coming harder than he has in months, vision nearly whiting out. Andrei isn’t far behind, dropping his head against Dougie’s chest with a groan as he stutters through his own orgasm. 

He feels settled in his own skin again afterwards, tucked under a fresh set of sheets with Andrei’s head on his shoulder, the feeling of their renewed chemistry a constant grounding warmth down his back. Life is unpredictable, Dougie knows, but he never wants to be away from the game that long again, no matter how sweet the reunion. 

But he also knows that if he has Andrei by his side he can get through just about anything.

“Going to be a good series,” Andrei pronounces from his shoulder, yawning through the last few words. “Tough one to win.”

“Hey,” says Dougie, ruffling his hair, “we got one tonight.”

“We did,” Andrei agrees, and Dougie can hear the smile in his voice. “Three more to go.”

“We’ll do it together,” Dougie says, and reaches over to turn off the light.

**Author's Note:**

> a) I basically took a few ideas from all the chemistry fics I've ever read, mashed them together, and then wrote this in the span of two hours, so if something in here doesn't make sense to you don't worry it doesn't make sense to me either  
> b) why does this take place after game 2 and not game 1? you may be asking. to that I say: would you have felt like getting it on if you'd just lost a playoff game in double OT? didn't think so


End file.
